Phantom of Riverside Park (7 page)

“You’ve got me there, Papa.”

Elizabeth ran her finger around the rim of
the bowl and licked off the dough. He was glad to see her acting
more like herself. Since she went off to the Delta, she’d been a
different person - pensive and jittery. Before that check entered
their lives she was the sunniest person he’d ever seen, rolling on
the rug laughing with Nicky as if she was no more than four
herself, whistling while she dressed for work, always planning for
the future they’d have after she earned her degree.

“We’ll move to a place in the country, Papa,
and you can have animals again,” she’d told him just last
Tuesday.

Or was it Wednesday? Sometimes he loses track
of the days.

“What do I need with a bunch of animals? Just
something to feed and clean up after.”

He’d die before he’d let her know how he
missed the farm. After five years you’d think he’d get over it, but
sometimes when he wakes up in the morning he still hears the
rooster crowing and smells the pine coming through his window on
the morning breeze. Anxious to set about his plowing he hurries to
the closet to find his overalls and gets confused when all he finds
are his khakis.

He’d never told his granddaughter all this.
She has enough to worry about without having to worry about him
getting senile. He’s not about to get in the same state his daddy
got in before they buried him: for the last six years of his life
Hank Jennings didn’t know his shirt from his shoes. He couldn’t
tell you whether it was June or December, and the last two years he
didn’t even know his own name, let alone the names of his children
and grandchildren.

To prevent such a catastrophe from overtaking
them, Thomas keeps a little notebook under his mattress. Every
night before he goes to bed he records the day’s events, and when
he gets up in the morning, instead of going to the closet and
looking for stuff that’s not there, he slips the notebook out from
under his mattress and familiarizes

himself with his own life.

Lately he’d added a new twist to his routine:
when he comes into the kitchen to make coffee, he sneaks the check
out of the cookie jar and stares down at a million dollars.
Sometimes he gets giddy imagining all the possibilities, but other
times he gets as scared as if he’s looking at a rattlesnake.

That check had changed all of them except the
boy. Thomas glanced over at the jar. Elizabeth had grabbed a cup of
coffee then gone to Nicky’s room to help him get dressed. What was
to keep him from sneaking another peek?

He lifted the jar lid and counted the zeroes
on the check. “If you were here, Lola Mae, I’d take you to Paris,”
he said. “The real one.”

Something like the sound of stars singing
whispered in his ear, and he remembered how he and Lola Mae used to
sneak out of the farmhouse in the middle of the night with a bag of
cookies and a handful of daisies, and when the first fingers of
morning would chase them inside they’d streak back like naughty
children, dew-wet and sated.

He’d been nothing till he found her, and
afterward he’d owned the world. If only she’d lived ...

“Papa ... the cookies.”

Elizabeth raced into the kitchen and jerked
open the oven door. Smoke billowed as she took the cookie sheet
out.

“Open the door, Papa, and let the smoke
out.”

His feet attached themselves to the floor,
and all he could think about was how he went woolgathering and let
his beautiful stars turns to globs of charred dough.

It was Nicky who opened the door, Nicky who
helped his mother fan out the smoke with a dish towel. When it was
all over, Thomas couldn’t seem to quit shaking.

“It’s all right, Papa.”

Elizabeth slid her arms around his bony
shoulder.

“No, it’s not. I could have burned the house
down.”

“But you didn’t.”

“What you ought to do is cash that check and
then you can hire somebody to take care of you and Nicky, somebody
with enough gumption to watch the stove.”

“Why would I want to hire somebody else when
I’ve already got the best?”

The way she said it, he believed her. That
was the thing about Elizabeth: she made you feel like you were the
most important person in the world. She made you believe in
yourself.

He picked up the cookie sheet and held
himself tall as he walked to the sink and turned on the water.

“Are you still lookin’ for that fellow?”

He didn’t have to explain, didn’t even have
to glance at the cookie jar with its secret contents.

“I’m still searching ... old newspapers at
the library, magazines, anything that might mention a
philanthropist in this area.”

“He said not to tell.”

“Who did?”

“The man at the park. The one who gave me the
check.”

Thomas could tell by the look on her face
that he forgot to tell Elizabeth, but that she was fixing to
pretend she was the one who forgot.

“It must have slipped my mind. Refresh me,
Papa.”

“He said it was very important not to tell a
soul. Especially not reporters. No newspaper interviews, no
magazines, no TV.”

“That makes discovering the donor’s identity
difficult if not impossible. Whoever sent this might as well be a
phantom.”

Nicky came into the room, a red fire truck
clutched in his hand.

“It’s time to go, Mommy.”

Elizabeth squatted beside Nicky. The sight of
them together made Thomas want to cry. God had given him five good
years with them, and every night when he got down on his knees he
tried to strike a bargain for more.

I’ll do one good deed a day, if You’ll
just let me live to see him through fifth grade ... I’ll quit
hating Manny and Judith for turning their own daughter out if
You’ll let me live to see Elizabeth earn her degree and settled
into a good job
... On and on the promises would go, but Thomas
knew that when his time came no amount of pleading was going to
change things.

“How did you know it was time to go?”
Elizabeth asked Nicky.

“‘Cause the clock has hands.”

Pure joy can transform a beautiful woman into
something even the angels envy.

“Did you teach him to tell time, Papa?”

“Don’t look at me. He’s smart as a whip,
that’s all.”

They set off walking the nine blocks that
would take them to the park, and Thomas was proud of his spryness,
proud that not once in all the years they’d been making this same
route had he ever been the cause for delay.

As they approached the gates he said what had
been on his mind ever since the cookies went up in smoke.

“I’m goin’ to find that man myself. I’m the
one who took the check.”

“You do that, Papa.”

Elizabeth kissed them both goodbye and he
headed to his usual bench in the middle of the park. He’d been
coming to the park so long that the bench might as well have a sign
posted that said “Reserved for Thomas Jennings.” Today he was
surprised to see somebody else sitting there. In all those years it
had only happened twice.

“You’re in my seat,” he said.

“I got here first. I guess it’s my seat
now.”

Thomas couldn’t believe that crusty old fool
defied him. If he’d taken a good gander at the face the first time
around, he might have guessed what would happen. The man’s jowls
hung down like a bulldog, and he’d apparently got a temper to
match. But Thomas was not without a stubborn streak himself, and he
wasn’t fixing to let some upstart take over his bench in the
Riverside Park.

“I’ve been comin’ here nearly five years with
the boy. Everybody knows that’s my seat.”

“You’re gonna argue, ain’t you?”

“Looks like it.”

Thomas looked for Nicky, already under his
favorite tree, the fire truck parked on a big exposed root, pointed
stick in his hands, digging to China.

“You be careful with that stick,” Thomas
yelled, not that he was worried. He just wanted to show somebody
his authority.

“He yours?” The bench snatcher nodded toward
the tree.

“I don’t tell strangers my business.”

“Looks like I’m not going to be a stranger
long seeing as how I’m sitting in this seat and don’t plan on
moving.”

“Neither do I.”

They glared at each other, two old men with
nothing better to do than see who could outlast the other in a
staring contest. Thomas had walked a long way, at least for a man
his age, and his legs were beginning to ache. But he wasn’t about
to let the old goofus on his bench know that.

“I should have known anybody who wears a wool
cap in the summer wouldn’t have the manners of a mule,” Thomas
said.

“Who are you calling a mule, you skinny old
toot? When I was in the war I ate men worse than you for
breakfast.”

“Are you a veteran?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”

All the fight went out of Thomas. Anybody who
served in combat couldn’t be all bad. To prove it, the man scooted
down to the far end of the bench.

“Take a load off,” he said. “I guess there’s
room enough for two.”

“I guess.” Thomas sat on the opposite end of
the bench. “My great grandson,” he said, nodding toward the
tree.

“I thought so. He looks like you.”

The old fool went up a notch in Thomas’s
book. “You think so?”

“I said it, didn’t I?”

They sat like that for fifteen minutes,
neither of them speaking, neither of them moving. Thomas was
getting a cramp in his legs, and the truth to tell he’d been
lonesome of late for the company of somebody his own age. In Tunica
he’d had Jim Gardner and Clarence Hopkins, but even if he was still
there he’d outlived them by three years.

“Thomas Jennings,” he said, not even turning
his head. “l6th Infantry, lst Division.”

“Fred Lollar, 506th Parachute Infantry
Regiment, l0lst Airborne Division.”

Sometimes prayers you didn’t even know you’d
prayed were answered. It was that way with Thomas. For the next
hour they couldn’t talk fast enough, and by the time Thomas pulled
his two biscuits with bacon out of the sack, he’d told Fred all
about the man he was looking for, everything except the million
dollar check.

Good soldiers don’t ask questions. Fred
munched his honey bun and stared into the distance.

“I reckon I can help you find him,” he
said.

“I’m not askin’ for chairty.”

“I ain’t offering it. Just a neighborly
hand.”

“That’s different.” Thomas broke half his
biscuit off and handed it to Fred. “Too much sugar’ll take all the
wind out of you.”

When Fred bit in, Thomas could tell he was
impressed.

“I made ‘em myself.”

“Eula’s been dead twenty years, but I never
did learn to cook.”

“Maybe I’ll teach you sometime.”

They shifted positions on the bench, two
withered sunflowers moving with the light. Thomas left only to make
sure Nicky ate lunch and to take him to the toilet and the water
fountain.

In later afternoon there was a flat quality
to the light, and the day suddenly went still. Anticipation hung so
thick it was like a fog in front of your face, and Thomas could
tell by the way his neck prickled that something was fixing to
happen, something so important it was going to require all his
attention.

He and Fred were discussing the merits of
checkers versus dominoes, and he shushed Fred in mid-sentence. Fred
drew into himself like an old turtle, and the wool cap slid down to
hide his bushy eyebrows.

“Over yonder,” Thomas whispered, nodding in
the direction of the water fountain. “It’s him.”

“Bingo.”

Fred pushed the cap up and both of them
stared at the man wearing the gray three-pieced suit. There was no
mistaking him, hair so black it swallowed the light, eyes that even
at this distance could look straight through you, a face that
looked like it was dreamed up by a sculptor.

“What are you going to do?” Fred said.

“Wait.”

The man beside the fountain was talking to a
woman with not a single feature to distinguish herself. She could
be one of a thousand women past middle age who would enter the
grocery stores and the shopping malls and the pharmacies on any
given day of the week, conduct their business and leave without
anybody even noticing they’d been there. Not even her dress showed
a shred of evidence about her life.

“What’s he doing?” Fred said.

If Thomas hadn’t already seen him not two
feet away, he would’ve had no idea that the man in gray was handing
a check to the woman who could pass through a crowd without even
causing a ripple.

“Watch him,” he whispered. “I’ll go get
Nicky.”

“But I want to stay and play,” Nicky said
when Thomas explained what they were going to do.

“You don’t want to miss a grand adventure, do
you?”

“Can I take my fire truck?”

“Sure. I’ll take it for you.” Thomas stuck
the small truck into his pants pocket. He didn’t want a thing to
slow them down. Of course, Nicky was going to slow him down some,
but he was not about to leave the child with Fred, even though his
gut instinct told him he could trust Fred with his life.

He tucked the child’s hand securely in his
and trotted toward the fountain.

“Where are we going?” Nicky asked.

“Detectives don’t know where they’re goin’
till they get there. Now be real quiet or he’ll see us.”

He heard a huffing sound and glanced back to
see Fred.

“What are you doin’?”

“Following that skinny man.” Fred was
wheezing like a pump organ.

“You’d better go back and sit down. I told
you honey buns would cut your wind.”

“Honey buns, smunny buns. You’re going to
need me, you crazy old coot.”

“I’d like to know how you figure that.”

“In my prime I was a private detective.”

“Come on, then. Just keep your voice down and
your eyes open. And quit that wheezin’.”